Yes, but working on a bag you are throwing the same techniques you would throw at a person. Working in a GI offers up avenues not available to those not training in a gi, and that are useless if your opponent is not wearing a Gi. (Lapel chokes are seriously weak IMO)

To the other guy: A coat and a gi are different things, and only the sturdiest of coats is going to give you the grips a GI does without just tearing.

This was in the previous pages however I wanted to reply to this.

This is so wrong. Actually i believe that once you get sturdier or thicker gis, you will be a lot harder to choke. Actually a lot of guys do this and get this false feeling of safety when people have hard time to choke them.

You CAN use someones clothes to choke him and its a lot easier. If their shirt is SO thin and elastic then maybe it would be a little hard to do it same as gi however you can just go deeper with your grips. Or you can do some chokes like, i dont know the names but instead of grabbing the collar you grab the lower parts of the gi and get them up and so on.( I know this is a shitty explanation but I hope someone can understand what i mean and help me with that)

Will the guys clothes will be deformed later? Who cares. If you are so nice you can buy him some new clothes after kickin his arse.

Self defense wise, I don't think that there's any argument that a trained grappler will take an untrained grappler down and have free reign on the guy's fate. Do you need to do a "gi-choke"? You can ezekiel him without the gi... Do all the "necktie"s. D'arce. I'm not an expert, but that's just some stuff off the top of my head.

Originally Posted by ArtOfDefense

I am aware, I just don't think there are really that many purely no-gi practicioners participating in grappling tournaments.

Search "10th Planet". Only 12 matches. The only guy they have in Black Belt adult is a 3rd placer by Denny Prokopos who TRAINS IN THE GI, too... (with Jake Shields, right? He has a pic training with marcelo garcia too, in the gi)